Catheters find their use in many different medical applications, such as urinary catheters for bladder drainage. Catheters are normally pre-packed in a receptacle by the manufacturer, in order to maintain the catheter in a clean and preferably sterile condition.
For many types of catheters, such as urinary catheters, it is desirable to have a slippery outer surface to facilitate insertion. For this reason hydrophilic urinary catheters may have a hydrophilic outer surface coating which should be wetted by a fluid such as water or saline for a certain time period prior to insertion thereof into the urethra of a patient. In order to facilitate the use and to improve cleanliness of the catheter, the assemblies have in recent years developed to comprise a rupturable wetting fluid pouch as well.
Thus, a typical catheter assembly of today may comprise a receptacle with a cavity for accommodation of the catheter and the wetting fluid pouch. However, as the wetting fluid pouch is loose it may fall out of the receptacle as the receptacle is opened to expose the catheter. To alleviate this problem, WO 01/52763 discloses a wetting fluid pouch affixed to a tear-off end of the receptacle. Thus, after the catheter has been wetted, the tear-off end can be torn off and removed from the receptacle along with the wetting fluid pouch for disposal thereof. Whereas such an opening procedure may be inconvenient for any user, the task becomes particularly demanding for users being disabled, such as users with limited capability of moving their limbs.
A more convenient catheter assembly is known from WO03/092779 disclosing a catheter assembly comprising a catheter receptacle including a compartment accommodating a wetting fluid. The compartment here forms an integrated part of the receptacle, but is separated by a separation wall including a point of weakness located between the wetting fluid compartment and the cavity containing the catheter. Hereby, the wetting fluid may be discharged into the cavity containing the catheter by compressing the wetting fluid compartment. However, whereas this solution alleviates the above discussed problems, the process of manufacturing a receptacle with an integrated wetting fluid compartment tends to be rather complex.
Thus, there is generally a problem to provide a catheter assembly that is easy to use, while also being easy and cost efficient to produce
Consequently, there is a need for an alternative catheter assembly that alleviates the above-discussed problems.